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When Nationwide’s anchor Michael Barratt left the programme in 1977, the BBC sent him on a valedictory train tour of the country. For Jeremy Paxman’s departure after 25 years on Newsnight, it put him on a tandem with the mayor of London. It wasn’t a particularly good sequence. Who wants to see Paxo being chummy with a politician?

Equally misjudged was the cameo appearance by his old foe Lord Howard, famously skewered when Paxman asked him the same question a dozen times. “Did you?” he asked last night, apropos of nothing. “No, but feel free to ask another 11

Nature Nuts with Julian ClaryITV, 7pm
“I haven’t been this excited since I got stuck in a lift with the England rugby team,” says Julian Clary at the outset of this entertaining new three-part series in which the camp comedian travels around Britain meeting some of the country’s most fanatical nature enthusiasts